SHEBOYGAN FALLS – U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Friday that “boots on the ground” may be necessary to defeat ISIS and didn’t rule out going into Syria to do so.

Johnson, R-Oshkosh, began speaking to the Sheboygan County Chamber of Commerce about the country’s debt, Obamacare and the need to inform people of the direction President Barack Obama is taking the country.

But when a member of the chamber posed the question of how the United States should handle the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which has beheaded two American journalists and wreaked havoc in the region, Johnson, who sits on the Committee on Foreign Relations, became visibly frustrated at what he called Obama’s “lack of leadership.”

Johnson detailed a series of atrocities ISIS has committed in the region and added that the president must prove he’s “serious” about defeating the terrorist organization.

“What’s the solution? It’s about information. It’s getting Americans to rally to provide the support, the public opinion support for action…we’re probably going to have to take a sustained action, maybe boots on the ground,” Johnson said. “But there’s not a whole lot of courage in Washington D.C. So what it is going to take is Americans to understand that this is a threat.”

When asked about the “boots on the ground” remark after the event – and Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent comments that an anti-ISIS coalitions of nations would stop short of any ground deployment of troops – Johnson responded: “They’re already there,” referring the 1,000 U.S. military advisors to the Iraqi security forces.

He added that while there can be a discussion of what level of force should be applied to ISIS, he “has his doubts” that a coalition of local fighters in the area could beat back ISIS.

“We had 6,000 to 8,000 Al-Qaeda (forces) in Iraq and we had 160,000 American troops, that’s what we used to defeat them last time,” Johnson said. “Was that overkill? I don’t know, I’m not a military expert. But I’m saying…now we’ve got 15,000, 17,000, better equipped, better trained, better organized (ISIS forces), with a base of operation now. It’s going to be a tougher fight. Can we really rely on the Iraqi security forces?”

Johnson also indicated a need to enter Syria to eradicate ISIS. When asked after the event if he believes Syria no longer has any sovereignty as a nation, he responded: “I don’t see it because it doesn’t exist. I know it’s drawn on the map, but the reality is that border has been erased by ISIS.”

Johnson didn’t spend his entire talk on foreign policy.

One local man in the audience asked about what Johnson could do to help cultivate apprenticeships in the area to help address the skills gap between employers and potential employees.

Johnson responded first by saying that people need to stop telling children that a four-year college is the only path to prosperity, saying that mentality is partially responsible for the nation’s trillion dollar student loan debt. Later, he answered the man’s question by telling him to take the initiative locally.

“Don’t rely on the federal government to pass a law, you guys take it over here in the private sector,” Johnson said. “Set up a program, work through your chamber, get it done. And when it gets successful, let me know and let me use the office of the United States Senate to highlight that success. That’s one way I think I can be helpful.”

When asked by a member about whether he supported term limits, he said he did so grudgingly. Johnson said he would like to see voters effectively term-limit their representatives, but that gerrymandering of districts had made that impossible in some situations. Instead, he said he would like to a see a 10-year limit on service for federal representatives.

Johnson said after the talk that while he plans on only one more six-year term if he wins re-election, that’s a “game plan” that has changed before.

“As much as I would like to go back to my life, would I do it again? I just won’t foreclose that opportunity,” Johnson said. “My game plan was six years and go home. My game plan now is 12 years and go home.”